PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Program in Hellenic Studies
Claudio Monteverdi, The Return of Ulysses (1640)
Richardson Theater in Alexander Hall
January 9 and 10 @ 8:00 PM
“Performing Homer: From Epic to Opera”
An Interdisciplinary Conference
McCormick Hall
Please see website for full information.
Sponsored by the Department of Music, The Program in Renaissance Studies, Program in Italian Studies, Program in Hellenic Studies with the Support of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund, and the Council of the Humanities through the David A Gardner ’69 Magic Fund
Please visit the conference website for more information.
Mogens Pelt (University of Copenhagen; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
Mid-twentieth century Greece experienced a curious development: Shortly after Germans who had occupied Greece during World War II were expelled, Germans returned to take part in the country's reconstruction. This paper investigates such a return by exploring West Germany's significant role in there building of Greece, a role in which Bonn received strong American encouragement. This was so to such an extent that West Germany's role in Greece's post-war reconstruction can be considered a kind of "burden-sharing" with the United States. Focusing on the early post-war period, this paper considers the mechanisms that made it possible for West Germany to re-establish its position in Greece so soon after the end of Nazi Germany's devastating occupation.
Mogens Pelt (mpelt@princeton.edu) is Associate Professor in International History at Saxo Institute, History Section at the University of Copenhagen, where he also received his Dr. Phil. (2003) and Ph.D. (1993). Formerly Deputy Director of the Danish Institute at Athens, he was until recently attached to the Commission to Investigate the Danish Security Intelligence Service. Among his major publications are: Tying Greece to the West: American, West-German, Greek Relations, 1945-1974 (Copenhagen, 2006); Los negocios de la Guerra: Armas Nazis para la república española (Barcelona, 2005) with Morten Heiberg; and Tobacco, Arms and Politics, Greece and Germany from World Crisis to World War, 1929-41 (Copenhagen, 1998).
Pantelis Kalaitzidis (Academy for Theological Studies, Volos, Greece; Visiting Scholar, Princeton Theological Seminary)
Respondent: Albert Raboteau (Department of Religion)
Room 103, Scheide Caldwell House
This paper affords a fresh look at the intimate relation between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek State. Beginning with the concept of “identity” in the ancient Church and Orthodox theology, it then moves to consider the emergence of Greek national identity from the fall of Byzantium until the Greek Revolution of 1821. Soon after this period, important Greek thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries validated Greek ethnogenesis through the notion of continuity. While the oft-discussed “Great Idea” aimed to assert Greek continuity in geographical space, two nineteenth century Greek scholars, Spyridon Zambelios and Constantine Paparrigopoulos, searched for Greek continuity throughout time and history. Furthermore, Christos Yannaras, a Greek theologian and philosopher of the1960s, claimed Greek continuity neither in space nor history, but in the field of thinking and culture, specifically in the realm of the dialogical/communal and apophatic version of truth from Heraclitus through St. Gregory Palamas. This investigation concludes with attention to the problems and twists that accompany this special Church-State relationship.
Pantelis Kalaitzidis studied theology at the University of Thessaloniki and continued his postgraduate studies in Paris where he studied ancient and medieval philosophy, as well as Systematic Theology, at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, at the Institut Catholique de Paris, and at the Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), where he obtained his M.A. in 1986. He has published over 40 papers in Greek, French, English and Serbian on both his initial field of specialization - ancient Greek ontology, epistemology and the comparative study of the Eastern Orthodox and Western traditions - and in his current area of interest, which include Christian eschatology, the dialogue between Orthodox Christianity and Modernity, theology and modern literature, and religion and multiculturalism. His doctoral dissertation (School of Theology, University of Thessaloniki) deals with the issue of Hellenicity and anti-westernism in the Greek “theology of the ’60s.” For the last eight years, he has served as Director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies in Volos, Greece. His latest book, Orthodox Christianity and Modernity: Prolegomena (Indiktos Publications), is currently being translated into English.